Detroit/Yao articles

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MICHAEL ROSENBERG: If Yao can show humanity amid celebrity, he'll really take off

March 4, 2003

BY MICHAEL ROSENBERG
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST

If you lined up the 10 starters in tonight's Pistons-Rockets game by scoring average, Yao Ming would be fifth.

What? You don't care?

Yeah, I don't really care either. Yao Ming is 7-feet-5, he's from China and he makes fancy passes. How cool is that?

Yao is in Stage One of American celebrity. He is new and he is talented and he is unlike anything we have seen before.

Unfortunately, the only way to stay in Stage One forever is to die. So soon Yao will go to the next stage, where we find out more about him.

This is what we know of Yao Ming, the player: He will be a star. Less than a season into his career, he has proved that. His numbers (13.7 points, 8.2 rebounds and 1.83 blocks per game) don't begin to describe his potential.

Here is a 22-year-old who at 7-5 can pass, shoot and run better than many NBA small forwards. Once the rest of the Rockets figure out that Yao should touch the ball on almost every possession, his numbers will inflate.

This is what we know of Yao Ming, the person: Almost everybody likes him, he enjoys his privacy and he is uncommonly funny. When Shaquille O'Neal made the poor choice of speaking in mock Chinese earlier this season, Yao defused the controversy by saying Chinese was a difficult language to learn.

And that brings us to the next question about Yao Ming, modern-day superstar. English is not such a hard language to learn. He already knows more than he lets on.

So should he start to speak English in public?

If he does, we will inevitably learn more about him. He is past the point where he needs to reveal his personality to gain popularity. He is a 7-foot-5 Chinese man in a league full of shorter Americans. That is enough to draw our attention.

I plan to enjoy the next decade of Yao Ming even if he never speaks another clause of English, but I hope he shows us who he is.

And if he decides to give the world the silent treatment? It would be a shame, but who could blame him?

The two most famous athletes in the world are probably Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods, neither one of whom has ever expressed a single political view. Oh, Jordan endorsed Bill Bradley for president once, but only because his old coach, Phil Jackson, is Bradley's pal. And Tiger gave a stirring speech on the women-at-Augusta National flap when he said, with a loaded microphone to his head, that Augusta could do what it wanted no matter what he thought, so please leave him alone, OK?

Imagine the uproar if Tiger said, "You know, just my opinion here: I think we are perfectly justified to go to war with Iraq. In fact, I think it's the only logical option." That's an opinion shared by about half the people in the country. But if Tiger said it, columnists' hearts would flutter and marketers would be nervous. It would not be a career boost.

We forgive Jordan and Woods for their intentional vapidity because they are the best at what they do. Jordan dresses sharply and we choose to see perfection. Tiger pumps his fist and we call it charisma.

Yao Ming has a long way to go before he approaches Tiger or Jordan as an athlete, but he has a chance to match them in public persona.

Let's hope he chooses a different path. In a league full of shorter Americans, a 7-foot-5 Chinese guy who speaks his mind would really stand out.




Contact MICHAEL ROSENBERG at 313-222-6052 or rosenberg@freepress.com.

 

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A slam dunk for Chinese: NBA phenom draws Asian fans to Palace

March 4, 2003

BY MARSHA LOW
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

They will descend upon the Palace of Auburn Hills by the thousands, waving signs, snapping pictures, cheering for a national treasure.

Tonight, Yaomania hits metro Detroit as the Detroit Pistons tip off against the Houston Rockets and their star center, Yao Ming -- the 7-foot-5 National Basketball Association rookie All Star from China who is gaining international attention and making basketball fans out of Asians.

Tonight, in the words of Farmington Hills resident and China native, Hua He: "The Chinese will pack the house!"

In preparation, metro Detroit's Asian community spent the weekend painting signs in both English and Chinese. The weeks preceding tonight's game had the Palace box office flooded with calls for tickets and requests to meet Yao Ming in person. And in the months leading up to Yao Ming's first visit to Detroit, interest in joining the area's Chinese basketball league has flourished because of the man many call the Chinese Michael Jordan.

"He's a source of pride for the Chinese and all Asian people," said Nick Liu, 37, of Northville who will attend tonight's game with his 6-year-old son Joshua. "Yao Ming is very popular because he has skill in basketball, but he's also very humble. He's a good representative of Asian people."

For Joshua, the draw to Yao Ming is simpler: "He's 7-5 and he's Chinese and he can slam-dunk."

Consider the numbers: Ford Motor Co.'s Chinese employees bought 550 tickets, General Motors' Chinese employees 400 tickets, 100 for the Asian Young Professionals, 600 purchased by a handful of Chinese community groups and 200 by the region's Chinese language schools.

"Chinese people will go see him because he looks like us," said Fanny Li, 29, who works at Tinsway Co. in Troy, an Asian food and restaurant supplier. The store's owners purchased 20 tickets for its employees and planned to close early for tonight's game. "So many people are going to see each other at the game . . . it will be a happy reunion."

Palace advertising agents also caught wind of Yao Ming's Asian fan base and placed full-page ads in the Greater Detroit Chinese American News. The result: 1,000 tickets sold and a 22,076-seat stadium that will be nearly full.

"We've never had as many Chinese Americans at a Pistons' game as we're expecting Tuesday," said David Wieme, director of strategic communications for Palace Sports and Entertainment.

"Certainly the NBA has international players and big players the size of Yao Ming before. What's different in the case of Yao Ming is that he also has a great deal of skill."

Two other NBA centers hail from China -- the San Antonio Spurs' Mengke Bateer and the L.A. Clippers' Zhizhi Wang -- but neither has garnered as much attention as Yao Ming.

This is not the first time basketball has made an odd marriage of sport and ethnicity. Take, for example, college hoops star Tamir Goodman whose skill earned him the nickname Jewish Jordan. At Towson University in Baltimore, the Orthodox Jew packed the house with what must have been the largest gathering of observant Jews around a basketball court.

In Yao Ming's case, the groundswell of support has swept the nation, prompting the song, "It's a Ming Thing," and spurring Asian Americans to pack basketball arenas for a glimpse of his height, agile game and size-18 sneakers.

"The Chinese have traditionally excelled in table tennis and gymnastics," said Jian Pang, a 39-year-old Canton resident who is a member of a local basketball team. "But now more people are coming to join basketball teams and I think it's because of Yao Ming."

The 22-year-old Shanghai native signeda 4-year contract last year worth $17.8 million with the Houston Rockets.

Last month, NBA fans solidified his rise when they chose him over the Los Angeles Lakers' Shaquille O'Neal as the Western Conference's starting center for the All Star game.

While game experts acknowledge that Yao Ming is not yet Shaq's equal on the court, major corporations have fallen for the Chinese giant and the 1.3-billion Chinese consumers that he can help lure to their products. In the United States Yao Ming could influence the spending of 11.9-million Asians; 54,631 in Michigan, of which 31,086 are Chinese. Already there is a Visa commercial, one for Apple computer and certainly more on the horizon.

"China is the fourth largest trading partner with America now," said Marisa Ming, executive director of the Asian American Chamber of Commerce, based in Auburn Hills. "American corporations want to network more with the Chinese market and Yao Ming is so popular in Asia and among Asians here in the United States that he becomes a good marketing tool for the business world."

Also winning Yao Ming favor is the way he handled his first public controversy last year when in an interview, Shaq told a reporter to relay a message: " . . . tell Yao Ming, 'Ching-chong-yang-wah-ah-soh.' "

Although Asian Americans were incensed by the comment, Yao Ming chose to defuse the situation by joking that Chinese is a hard language to learn. He also invited Shaq to his home for dinner, which the Lakers' center declined citing prior commitments. But the good nature Yao Ming expressed provoked Shaq to offer an apology.

"I don't watch basketball at all but the first I heard about Yao Ming was because of the Shaquille O'Neal comments," said Iris Shen-Van Buren, 35, of West Bloomfield. "There was outrage in the community about this issue. But Yao Ming handled it respectfully and we're proud of that."

And tonight as a roaring crowd welcomes Yao Ming to metro Detroit, he will receive credit for creating basketball's newest fans.

"The Chinese never followed basketball," said Jeff Zheng, editor of the Greater Detroit Chinese American News. "But now Yao Ming is playing basketball in a country that is king of basketball. So we consider Yao our big star and basketball our new game."




Contact MARSHA LOW at 248-586-2610 or low@freepress.com.